


A Swan-Song for Stiles' Bed

by Nny



Series: Month 1: Quantity (tumblr fic) [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, BAMF Lydia, Bisexual Character, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 22:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times the pack did their best to break Stiles' bed, and one time they didn't even have to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Swan-Song for Stiles' Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notmissmarple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmissmarple/gifts).



1

 

(Age 9)

There’s a horrible swaying creak and a loud awful thump, and Stiles drags Scott off the bed and all the way over to the window as his dad’s heavy footsteps come up the stairs faster than almost any time Stiles has ever heard them. 

“Act natural,” he hisses, and when his dad bursts through the door Stiles is adjusting the focus on the telescope he got for his last birthday and Scott is - somehow wrapped half way up in a curtain. He is ridiculous. Stiles has decided he will basically love him forever, even if he can’t do an alibi right. 

“Everyone okay in here?” his dad says, looking a little less crazy around the eyes than when he came in. 

“Definitely absolutely okay,” Stiles says, and Scott nods hard enough that his hair flops all over his face. 

“We were definitely not on the bed,” Scott says, and Stiles slaps a hand against his forehead. 

“Aaw, crap.” 

Scott slaps both his hands over his mouth like that’ll somehow shut Stiles up, and there’s a choking sound from the door, which for a second or two Stiles is genuinely afraid that his dad is going to yell at him in front of his new friend. (Stiles met him at the hospital. Scott’s mom is a nurse, and Scott didn’t laugh at him for crying, or ask him if he was okay, and he shared his fruit roll-ups, so.) After a second, though, he sees that the hand across his dad’s mouth is mostly not managing to hold back a smile, even if he looks kind of sad in his eyebrows. 

“Nothing’s broken, then,” his dad says, and Stiles bites his lip. 

“Possibly my new bed might need some screws being a little bit tightened a little bit maybe,” Stiles says, innocently. 

His dad sighs. “And what did we say when we got the new bed, Stiles?” he asks, but he still doesn’t sound angry. Kind of tired, maybe, and there’s no reason for _that_ to hurt in Stiles’ stomach. 

“Having a new bed is a big responsibility,” he repeats faithfully, “and it shouldn’t be jumped on or used as a safety net or experimented with and maybe it’d be a good idea for me to have a bed mom never slept in.” 

Mostly his mouth moves too fast for his brain to keep up and usually he’s okay with that because he always says things that are true anyway but he wishes it had worked a little slower today. He would have held that last bit behind his teeth if he could have, because there is nothing else left in the universe that is as bad as seeing his dad cry. 

“I’ll find a screwdriver,” his dad says, his voice a little wobbly, and he heads out of the room, and Stiles sits down suddenly and the impact on his butt heads up his spine and his teeth click together and it jolts a couple of tears out of his eyes. 

Scott doesn’t say anything, he just wraps his arms awkwardly around Stiles’ neck, mashing his nose against his cheek and pressing his forehead against Stiles’ hair. 

“D’you want to be my best friend?” Stiles says, voice thick and all wobbly just like his dad’s was. 

“Forever,” Scott says, and Stiles wants to tell him he can’t promise that, because things _don’t_ last forever, they disappear and leave horrible gaping horrible holes behind them, but Scott smells like Tide and Twizzlers and his arms are solid and warm and a little too tight, and Stiles is good with pretending for now. 

The way Stiles’ new bed creaks a little afterwards every time he moves is a small price to pay.

 

2

(16)

Stiles is spreading peanut butter when there is a loud thump from over his head. 

“HA,” he yells. He doesn’t need to yell, obviously, but there’s something satisfying about it that transcends necessity. Normal ears, _human_ ears, mean he doesn’t hear anything else until Isaac’s clattering down the stairs, muttering something that probably isn’t particularly complimentary under his breath. 

“You moved your bed?” he says from the kitchen door and Stiles turns around, two plates in hand, depositing one across the table from him as he sits down. 

“I moved my bed.” 

Isaac stares at the plate distrustfully but he takes a seat, at least, folding his arms across his chest. Stiles hums happily around a mouthful and breaks a banana off the bunch in the fruit bowl and leans over to place it next to Isaac’s plate. 

“Thanks,” he says grudgingly. 

“You came here to talk,” Stiles says, “so talk.” 

“Why did you move your bed?” Isaac asks, which isn’t actually what he meant but it’ll do for the moment. 

“Early warning system,” Stiles says easily. “You come through the window, I wake up, no more creeper wolves getting into maximum impact lurking position while I’m all asleep and defenseless.” 

Isaac fixes him with an unimpressed look, but he’s doing it above a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich because Stiles is basically a genius and he knows the way to a wolf-man’s heart. 

“If I land on you as hard as I did on that bed, Stiles, lurking wolves is the least of your problems,” he says flatly. 

“So it needs a little work,” he says with a shrug. 

“A little,” Isaac scoffs. He’s looking around, kind of forlorn, nothing but on his plate but crumbs and an empty peel. 

“Come in through the door next time and I’ll give you a cookie, too,” Stiles says.

*

**don’t booby trap other pack members**

Seriously, Stiles doesn’t even need Derek’s number saved into his phone; the words practically have little frowny eyebrows over them. 

**he cracked the leg of my bed no way im doing that again**

Just a hairline fracture but it’s the principle of the thing. Stiles scrolls back up to Derek’s text again, squints at it. 

**wait does this mean im pack** , he sends.

**Idiot**

It’s not a no. 

 

3

(17)

“I’m not helping you take apart your bed,” Derek says flatly, and Stiles can practically see the frustrated bulge of biceps where he can’t fold his arms, hands taken up with trash bags full of empty bottles, paper plates, all the detritus a birthday bash creates. His dad was on nights; every window in the house is now open to get rid of the smell of teenage hangovers, and Stiles has the creeping feeling it’s not going to be enough. 

“Come on, Derek,” Stiles whines. Yeah, he whines, he’s not proud. “There are now fluids in this bed the likes of which it should never have been subjected to, because your damn betas can’t keep it in their pants.” 

“So get Boyd and Erica to wash your sheets and quit complaining,” he says, because Derek has no soul. And also suggesting a ritual burning was maybe a level of tactlessness that Stiles would feel worse about if the after effects of whiskey and beer weren’t already making him feel like universes are colliding in his head. 

Stiles sighs and starts re-inserting the screws he’d already gotten to as Derek rustles his way down the stairs, but no matter what he does he keeps finding one screw left over. He sighs and shoves it onto the shelf behind his bed, hoping it’s not from anything important. 

“Should never have been subjected to?” Derek says later when they’re washing up shoulder to shoulder. He says it slowly, out of nowhere, like he’s been thinking about it. 

“I’m waiting for marriage,” Stiles says primly, then bites his lip. Most everyone else is slumped in the living room, watching John McClane blow shit up with a glorious disregard for any sort of police procedure, but he lowers his voice anyway. “Also I’m not sure if it’ll see much in the way of, like, _girl_ fluids in my future.” 

The shot of adrenaline from actually _saying_ it is the best thing and the worst thing that Stiles can remember feeling, and for a second his eyes fog over and he stares down into the suds rather than watch anything in the way of a reaction. 

Derek hums softly, but he doesn’t stiffen up, doesn’t move away. 

“Lydia?” he says after a moment. 

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles says, “but it’s - recently it’s been - not so much.” He’s pretty sure that it’s expected that his heart would be going a mile a minute right now. He’s pretty sure Derek won’t read into it. 

“It’s okay to -” Derek clears his throat softly. “I mean, bisexuality is a thing. An okay thing. A fine thing, I mean. Normal.” 

“Right,” Stiles says, and laughs a little wetly. He’d figured it’d be easier to come out if it was something that people knew as, like, decisive, not something that basically everyone he’d ever heard mention had dismissed as a phase, or greedy, or indecisive. If he weren’t already so stupidly into Derek he’s pretty sure this would’ve done it. “Right. One of them. As in, I think I am.” 

“Okay,” Derek says, and that’s it. Just goes back to washing dishes, like it’s normal, like nothing earth-shaking has happened. Stiles twists so he can wipe his nose on his shoulder and gets back to his share of the task, dazed and kinda grateful. 

After a minute Derek’s shoulder bumps his and then stays there, solid and warm against him. 

 

4

(18)

“Oh my god that is not even what virgin _means!_ ” Stiles bellows out of the window. There’s a line of mountain ash across the sill but apparently that only stops the physical, and Danny curls a hand in the back of his shirt and yanks him backwards just in time to avoid the bolt of power from below. 

“Virginity is a social construct,” he tells Danny, somewhere close to the edge of hysterical, and Danny rolls his eyes and helps him turn his bed on its side, one of the legs falling off and rolling away, so they can drag it across his bedroom door. 

“And if your social construct gets me killed I am going to be so pissed at you,” he says. 

“Maybe the mortal peril will shake something loose,” Lydia says calmly. She’s doing something complicated with herbs and powders and twists of paper. “I had mortal peril in the pool.” 

“Wait.” Stiles blinks at her. “Pool?” 

“You and Derek,” Danny says. There’s a crash from downstairs, somewhere, and Stiles is aware that should be the focus of his attention okay but seriously something has just seized hold of his adrenal gland and squeezed out everything it had going. 

“But -” he says, high-pitched and embarrassing, “five-year plan!” It’s been something to cling to, something safer and more familiar and with less inherent risk than - than anything else. 

Lydia rolls her eyes so hard the desk chair squeaks in protest. 

“I wasn’t consulted in the creation,” she says, “but here’s the dissolution: in no universe will we ever be together, partly because I would kill you within a week but mostly because I require my boyfriends not to be in love with someone else.” 

“She’s talking about Derek,” Danny says, helpfully. 

“But -”

Lydia pushes to her feet and comes close enough that she can push his mouth closed with one elegantly manicured finger. 

“Ready?” she says, pushing twists of paper into his hands. 

There’s the clatter of footsteps on the stairs and a cold lance of the fear and anger that Stiles has been holding off stabs straight into his stomach - what the hell have they done to Scott?

“Ready,” he says. “Here’s to mortal peril.” 

Danny hauls at the bed, hard enough that they can pull open the door just far enough to lob the twists of paper into the chaos that is outside the bedroom door. They fountain sparks, spitting and bright, blinding and burning anyone within reach, and Stiles yelps as one is knocked back at him, a line of scorching pain running up his sleeve before he can yank his shirt off. 

There’s a thunderous growl from below, a response to his yell, and Lydia pulls Stiles back into his bedroom and slams the door after him. 

“Hey,” Stiles says, grimace of pain making a go of turning into a smile at the edges. “The cavalry.” 

The noises from outside his door are like the soundtrack to some apocalyptic hell-scape, and things have barely died down before there’s a loud thud against the wood. 

“ _Stiles_.” 

Danny hauls the bed out of the way again, fast enough that something in the frame gets caught and twists in ways it shouldn’t, and then Derek is muscling through the door, eyes frantic. 

“Hey,” Stiles says, lifts his good arm, and he expects Derek to relax, to check the other members of the pack. Instead he gets an armful of angry werewolf, carrying with him a smell of ozone and burning herbs and the thick scent of blood. 

“You’re okay,” Derek says, scanning his face, only it was apparently rhetorical because he pushes in closer before Stiles can answer, mashing Stiles’ lips against his teeth in the most awkward first kiss that has probably ever existed. It doesn’t help that Stiles can’t stop smiling into it. 

“Mortal peril,” Lydia says, with a tone of smug satisfaction. 

 

5

(18)

There is a fairly final sounding _crack_ and the bedframe lurches. 

“Swear to - fucking god,” Stiles gasps, scrabbling at the headboard and bracing himself better, “you dare - fucking stop -”

“Not stopping,” Derek growls, and Stiles whines helplessly, pushing back. 

 

+1

(22)

The bed lasts a while longer, but it’s never quite the same. It’s hauled across the country twice, survives another set of witches, a wendigo and something that no one else in the pack believes was a chupacabra. More than that it survives four years of him and Derek, although that moves more and more into Derek’s place over time, somewhere Stiles’ dad won’t ever have to deal with the trauma of walking in on them. 

It’s just an ordinary Thursday when it finally gives in, collapses in a puff of dust when Derek backs Stiles against it; only his reflexes save Stiles from collapsing in an indignant heap. 

If it were up to Derek, Stiles is pretty sure there’d be no interruption to the proceedings, just maybe a change of location, but Stiles pulls away and scowls down at the sad heap of wood and mattress. 

“Aw, crap, I knew that screw was important,” he says, and rubs a weary hand across his forehead. He’s still looking for the perfect job to complement his skill-set, working part time hours in a diner in town while he’s waiting. “I really don’t have the budget to replace this.” 

“So don’t,” Derek says. 

Stiles snorts. “I’m not sure I’m gonna take your example in the furnishings stakes.”

“I have a bed.” 

“And we’re all very proud of you,” Stiles says solemnly. “Excellent progress.” 

Derek rolls his eyes, but there’s something nervous in the set of his mouth. 

“No,” he says slowly, “I have a bed. You should - you should move in with me.” 

It’s a little like getting punched in the stomach with happiness. 

“I - are you sure you’re willing to put up with me?” Stiles says, a real question buried deep under his half-laughing tone. 

“Pretty much forever,” Derek says. It isn’t something that he can promise, but Stiles is good with pretending.

**Author's Note:**

> Written because my bed fell apart twice last night. Apologies if there are sleep-deprived mistakes.
> 
> I can be found on tumblr [here](http://villainny.tumblr.com), come say hi!


End file.
